Lord McNally: My Lords, my full title is Lord McNally of Blackpool and I am a member of the Blackpool Pride national advisory board and chairman of the Fleetwood Trust. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, both for his introduction to this debate and for the collegiate and constructive way in which he chaired our committee. I think that we sometimes think of the noble Lord rather as parliamentary enforcer from his days as Chief Whip in the Labour Party, but he led us with great good humour and only a minimal tendency to remind us of what he termed Brighton’s “golden age”, which seemed to coincide with his own leadership of Brighton council in the 1990s. I echo the thanks offered by both the noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Smith, to our clerks and advisers as well as to Nick Ewbank, our specialist adviser, Beth Hooper, our policy analyst, and Robert Cocks, the committee assistant.
Sarah O’Connor, writing in the Financial Times in November 2017, stated:
“Blackpool exports healthy skilled people and imports the unskilled, the unemployed and the unwell”.
Our report shows that that could have been written about many of our seaside towns. They faced a collapse of the old seaside holiday industry based on boarding houses for the families of the workers of industrial Britain. That collapse was compounded by a straitjacket of a benefits and housing policy which almost incentivised the slum landlord and burdened seaside towns with a concentration of social problems which, by their very nature, accentuated the spiral of decline.
Our report makes strong recommendations about the need for flexibility in national policy so that local authorities could offer bespoke solutions to the social and economic challenges they face. We also call for longer, more strategic assistance rather than a series of short-term, small-impact, penny-packet initiatives.
During our travels, we saw some bold and successful regeneration initiatives, often based on cultural investment, such as the Turner Contemporary at Margate and the Tate at St Ives. At Clacton and Skegness, we saw how investment in sea defences could be used to enhance the tourism offer. We received a wide range of evidence about the importance of transport links and investment in high-quality education and training as well as better digital connectivity. It was encouraging to see on our visit to Skegness how Butlin’s was prospering by providing themed weeks and weekends for specific target audiences —something that could be imitated by other resorts. It  was also good to see the Butlin’s company fully committed to a training programme for people wanting to make a career in the leisure industries.
Our report gives the opportunity for a well-co-ordinated, focused approach to the problems facing our seaside towns. As an example of the collegiate approach fostered by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, when the committee started, the noble Lord, Lord Smith, and I were rather at opposite ends of the spectrum, with me looking to public intervention and him espousing private initiative. By the end, I think we were in close agreement that the partnership he mentioned in his speech is necessary for success, as, too, is the kind of initiative he cited in respect of New Brighton, where an individual with a commitment to the locality and a vision for the future can make an enormous difference.
Given its previous success, changes in holiday patterns together with the decline of the historical industrial base meant that Blackpool had a harder fall and was left with bigger problems. It is the very severity of Blackpool’s problems which caused me to argue that giving Blackpool specific and concentrated help was not special pleading. Success in Blackpool could provide the template for dealing with similar problems in other coastal areas. Nor is Blackpool simply holding out the begging bowl. As we found when the committee visited the town, a strong partnership between the private and public sectors is having a major impact on investment and facilities. I look forward to the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, whom the Prince’s Responsible Business Network drafted in to give help and advice. She has just finished her term there having had a tremendous impact on local attitudes.
We have seen in Blackpool new hotels, a new conference centre and new leisure attractions, including a new museum to celebrate Blackpool’s unique place in the history of our entertainment industry. This morning, I heard about a plan for a national entertainment academy in partnership with Blackpool and The Fylde College and Lancaster University’s creative arts department. That kind of vision means that Blackpool is very close to the tipping point between being part of the problem of our seaside towns and providing a template for their success.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th in Blackpool, a partnership between a progressive local authority and far-sighted entrepreneurs created 20th century Blackpool, with the building of the tower, the tramway, the Pleasure Beach and the illuminations. I believe a similar partnership now exists. That is why the committee supported the suggestion of a town deal for Blackpool. By blending existing work with new commitments from partners and government, a town deal for Blackpool would deliver a strong, holistic response to the town’s needs.
As well as a positive Whitehall response, we must also ensure that government really is joined up, so that one department is not undoing the good work being done by another. For example, will the Minister press the Ministry of Justice to make an early decision on relocating Blackpool courts? MoJ delay is delaying the release of £300 million of private sector investment and the creation of 1,000 new jobs via the Blackpool   Central leisure development, in which the courts still squat. Can we have an early decision from the Cabinet Office, the DWP and the Ministry of Defence about the consolidation of Civil Service jobs in a new Civil Service hub in Blackpool town centre? That consolidation should include retention by the Ministry of Defence of the Norcross-based Veterans UK unit, which has been serving the social and medical needs of veterans for three generations. Individual departments have to look at the social implications of what they are doing, not just do a tick-box exercise. That will bring civil servants together in what looks like a logical suggestion but will have a devastating effect on an area such as Blackpool, which had and still has a massive concentration of civil servants’ departments. I think I have told the House before that the first job I was ever offered, when I was 16, was in the land registry in St Annes. Who knows where I might have ended up if I had joined then? Probably at the land registry in St Annes.
One of things the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, did, in his collegiate way, was to offer us all an opportunity to write a little block in the report. Noble Lords will have seen that my piece is not about Blackpool but about Fleetwood. That is in part because, during our deliberations, the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, convinced me that the well-being of our ports should also be of concern. In my piece, and in the evidence we received when visiting Fleetwood Dock, we outline the problems that have hit Fleetwood over the past 40 years: the loss of the deep-sea fishing industry, the rail link and the ferry services to Ireland and the Isle of Man. These came on top of the other factors hitting seaside towns, already identified. Following the committee’s visit to Fleetwood, I accepted the chairmanship of the Fleetwood Trust, a charity formed by local church, community and business leaders to restore the old and derelict Fleetwood Hospital as a community hub meeting social, health and community needs. It is a good example of a community making its own weather, and I put on record my thanks for the advice the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, gave us, drawing on his own vast experience, not least in Bromley-by-Bow. Associated British Ports owns a large expanse of derelict land around the old dock area and it is essential that the company shows social and corporate responsibility, as well as its profit motive, in discharging its responsibilities in determining how that land is developed.
Joined-up government and good private and public partnership, are the essentials of regeneration success, which is why I worry about the plethora of bodies one has to negotiate with. Is this a matter for Whitehall or the LEP, for the county council or the local council? In the 1960s there was talk of a city of the Fylde between the Ribble and the Wyre. Certainly, it will need a sense of vision and a certain generosity of spirit between the Fylde coastal bodies to maximise the benefits of any central government initiative. I put on record here my thanks to the Prince’s Trust and the Prince’s Responsible Business Network for the help they have given both Blackwood and Fleetwood in this respect. I was less impressed, on our visit, by the Duchy of Cornwall. We were shown a very impressive housing estate, but I did not leave Cornwall with the feeling that the Duchy was showing the kind of leadership I had expected in the  area. Likewise, the Crown Estate could show a lot more responsibility, considering its interests in seaside assets.
I give the last word, however, to the estimable Sarah O’Connor of the Financial Times. Following our report she wrote a second article, reflecting on what we had said, in which she said:
“Real solutions to the problems would include more long-term funding for health, education and social care in seaside towns that reflect the complex needs of living there; physical and digital infrastructure investment; and power and resources for local people to reform their economy and housing markets”.
I could not agree more. We are about to have a new Prime Minister. The Duke of Wellington, when he became Prime Minister, came out of his first Cabinet meeting and said that it was all “Talk, talk, talk”. I think we need a little more from the new Administration. I prefer Churchill’s “Action this day”.

Lord Beith: My Lords, following the wise words we have just heard, I want to take you on a journey of nearly 500 miles from Weymouth to Berwick-upon-Tweed. I am fortunate to live in the beautiful, historic seaside border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and this valuable report examines many of the problems our town and many other seaside towns face.
We do not have the problem of a transient population and multi-occupied housing on the scale of Blackpool—I am fond of Blackpool from both childhood and party conferences, which I regret to say no longer happen there. I still have a great regard for Blackpool and recognise the seriousness of the problem. But we have all the other problems: seasonal employment, low wages, educational disadvantage, remoteness from medical services and the problems of being at the end of the road. In our case, the road is the A1, with still no plans to dual it the whole way to Berwick, although it is largely dualled on the Scottish side of the border.
I am glad that the report refers to what it describes as the 180 degrees factor. If you draw a circle to show the catchment area of a seaside town, the area on which it can draw from local trade, jobs and services is only a semicircle, because half of it is in the sea. In Berwick’s case, for public services, most of that semicircle does not count either, because it is on the Scottish side of the border and there is now an artificial barrier to access things across the border. That population is not counted in planning local service provision.
I must pay tribute to what local volunteers have achieved in making our town more attractive than ever to residents and visitors alike, drawing in public funding to do so. The Coronation and Castle Parks in Berwick have been wonderfully restored. The Maltings arts centre, and the traditional Victorian resort amenities in Spittal have been beautifully restored and maintained through the work of the Spittal Improvement Trust.
That is what the report refers to as,
“the restoration and enhancement of the public realm and cultural heritage assets through capital investment”.
A lot of it has been done by volunteers and backed by local small business.
In this context, I mention another small Northumberland seaside town, Amble. It was a friendly but declining former coal mining and coal-exporting town, but now it is a lively and popular place to live and visit, with many small craft and food businesses, making Amble Harbour Village a growing attraction.
Berwick’s economy benefits greatly from tourism, probably much more than it did in Victorian times, particularly because of the large number of visitors in the caravan and holiday parks in and near the town and the increasing number of holiday lets, although they create housing problems of which the noble Lord, Lord Best, is aware.
Tourism can contribute even more if we get investment in underused attractions, such as Berwick’s early 18th century barracks. New funding initiatives such  as the tourism deal and the Borders growth deal, a cross-border initiative, need to include not just very big projects near centres of population but projects in more isolated seaside towns, where a little can achieve  a lot. I hope it is understood by the North East local enterprise partnership and the combined authority, in their bid for funding for a tourism zone in the region under the Government’s tourism sector deal, that those small communities need to share in those projects, because it all seems a bit remote from us. Northumberland County Council, in evidence to the committee, warned of too much emphasis on honeypot sites in VisitBritain’s work, with not much trickle-down to seaside towns.
However, the future of seaside towns is not just about tourism, important although it is: it is about deprivation, underprovision and lack of opportunity, and how we tackle them. It is about young people leaving the area because of our lack of opportunity, and consequently limited aspirations and low wages for those who remain—a point to which a previous noble Lord referred.
The only population growth in our area is from people who retire to the area, attracted by its beauty and lower house prices. Many are active contributors to the life of the community and to the very volunteer initiatives I spoke about earlier, but they cannot replace the lost generation of young people. In many areas, the presence of a university or college brings more young people into the area, some of whom stay, which in turn increases the opportunities and aspirations of local young people.
I cannot think of anywhere in England as far away from a university or further education college as Berwick-upon-Tweed. The report refers to limited access to education, in particular to FE and HE institutions, which severely curtails opportunities and dents aspirations for young people in some coastal areas. That is our story; it is very much what we experience. In paragraph 148 the report accepts that there is never going to be a bricks-and-mortar offering of higher education in every coastal town. No, but no town should be as far from such things as Berwick is. A higher education presence in the town, and a bigger further education presence—given that at present there are only elements provided by a distant college—would be hugely beneficial. We also need a new-build and newly administered high school. Academy status did not solve the problems of Berwick’s only post-13 school, and in some respects made it more difficult to secure the improvements needed. The target investment recommended in the report for secondary schools in seaside communities is certainly needed in Berwick.
Post-16 transport, which the committee refers to, has been a great problem for us. The only alternative to the local high school that became an academy is to go to a very distant further education college in Newcastle or Ashington. When the Liberal Democrats were running the council as a minority administration, we introduced free transport for those journeys. The next administration removed that provision, and it is time that we went back to dealing with the denial of opportunity that that means. There is no comparison between the position of someone within cheap or free daily travelling distance of further education and someone deprived by the very high cost of getting to a distant college.
Local authority funding in general affects the provision of so much in seaside communities. We all know how severely it has been restricted in recent years; it threatens  many of the services on which we depend. Capital funding of projects has an important part to play in restoring and increasing the community assets of seaside towns, but it cannot replace the day-to-day funding needed to provide essential public services as well as to maintain and make use of those assets. There are few things more frustrating for seaside communities than to see restored facilities falling back into decline because the funding to maintain them or to promote continued activity in them has dried up.
We see similar issues in the National Health Service. We are awaiting a long-promised new hospital, but the issue for local people will be whether it is funded well enough to provide the widest range of health services that can be provided safely locally, since we are 50 miles from any of the main hospitals.
When you live in an attractive seaside town, you have great opportunities to enjoy the scenery and the presence of the sea, but that is not sufficient compensation if you need, and do not have, many of the opportunities and public and social services which, if you live in larger towns and cities, you can rely on or even take for granted. I do not think the Government’s response goes far enough in tackling these unfair disadvantages of many seaside communities.